Test Your Product Proposition and Marketing Separately

User research has always been the backbone of our business, but it took us a long time to get good at it. In the early days of Yonder, we wasted a lot of time by testing both our product proposition (what we were building) and our product messaging (our brand, tone and positioning) at the same time.

Testing whether a proposition is good is very different to testing if it is clear. Do them separately.

One of my earliest articles detailed a step-by-step method for launching a new product from scratch. That post covers our user research process—and importantly, all the ways we wasted time that you can shortcut. So before you read on, you might want to start there first.

Don’t Test a Proposition With a Website

Once we’d interviewed about 200 of our target customer, we had a rough idea of what the Yonder proposition might look like. We then proceeded to waste a lot of time mocking up websites to give them the ‘feel’ (read: vibes) of what we were going to build.

We were obsessed with creating this premium brand – let’s put lots of black everywhere and stock photos of people who look wealthy but deeply unhappy – but we didn’t even know if the product we wanted to build was good enough. We were prioritising the messaging before finishing the actual product. Some classic cart before the horse kind of stuff.

Ultimately, we weren’t learning what we wanted to. What we really wanted was to see if the proposition was interesting, not if they liked the brand. Don’t confuse the two. Cut all the marketing stuff out and be super clear. You can improve your messaging later.

Focus on Features First, Not How You’ll Promote Them

When testing a new product proposition, a simple Google Doc or Notion page with one line for each feature is enough. Anything more is a distraction.

This is where we started to come unstuck. We weren’t getting a strong read on whether our product was good enough. The feedback was all over the place because we weren’t being clear on the actual product feature as we were too busy being clever with the messaging.

For example, for ‘travel insurance’ we should have just put ‘worldwide family travel insurance’, but instead, we had stuff like ‘Things go belly up in Barcelona? You’re covered’. Nothing about that is clear, so we weren’t actually learning if someone wanted the insurance or not.

For Yonder, it would have looked a little like this:

You can pull that together in all of about ten minutes and get testing.

The Difference Between Proposition Testing and Messaging Testing

Proposition testing is about assessing the value of your product.

You’re answering, “Is this proposition good enough?” At this stage, product mockups, tone of voice, and brand positioning aren’t relevant. Focus on product features and functionality. Just list out the features in a Notion doc and ask your target customer if they’d buy it and what appeals to them.

Messaging testing is about assessing the clarity of your proposition.

This is the fun part, but you have to earn it by doing the proposition testing first.

This is all about clarity and appeal. You’re answering, “Is this product proposition clear?” Essentially, is whatever you’re making being communicated effectively, brand and all? This is where brand language, tone, visuals, and design come into play. For example, once we knew our product proposition for Yonder was solid, we started experimenting with how to convey it through website copy, brand tone, and ad visuals.

If you do this bit first, you’re wasting your time. Have fun building out your brand messaging, bringing your new product to life with visual assets, your tone of voice and positioning, and test how it might work on an Instagram ad, website or billboard.

Just Don’t Test Both at Once

So the key takeaway here is to be clear about what you want from testing – and design your testing plan around that.

Testing a product’s viability is different from testing if the way you message it is clear. The former is about the product, the latter is about the marketing. Don’t conflate them.